Underdogs

Underdogs

The Mexican rebellion was brought on by discontent and disagreement between officials in office and the people of Mexico. Much of this discontent formed during the presidency of Porfirio Diaz. During the span of thirty-one years that he ruled in office, Diaz had the final decision in who was to partake in the government. Diaz's time in office directly reflected a dictatorship that called denied the people to have any input in the laws that governed Mexico. During the time of the Revolution wealth was scarce and injustice was overwhelming to the people of Mexico. A Revolution grew out of this discontent and was initiated by a liberalist by the name of Franciso Madero. This marked the beginning of social change in Mexican history.

In the early 20th Century, a group of aggressive, young leaders sought to gain the right to participate in their own government by strategizing against Porfirio Diaz and his regime. This group of young leaders believed that they could assume their proper role in Mexican politics once President Diaz announced publicly that Mexico was ready for democracy. Although the Mexican Constitution called for public election and other institutions of democracy, Diaz and his supporters used their political and economic resources to stay in power indefinitely. It was this power that Diaz had over his regime that kept him in office for a total of thirty-one years.

Francisco Madero was one of the strongest believers that President Diaz should renounce his power and not seek re-election. Together with other young reformers, Madero created the ''Anti-reeleccionista'' Party, which he represented in subsequent presidential elections. Between elections, Madero traveled throughout the country, campaigning for his ideas. Francisco Madero was a firm supporter of democracy and of making government subject to the strict limits of the law, and the success of Madero's movement made him a threat in the eyes of President Diaz. Shortly before the elections of 1910, Madero was apprehended in Monterrey and imprisoned in San Luis Putosi. Learning of Diaz's re-election, Madero fled to the United States in October of 1910. In exile, he issued the ''Plan of San Luis,'' a manifesto that declared that the elections had been a fraud and that he would not recognize Porfirio Diaz as the legitimate President of the Republic. Instead, Madero made the daring move of declaring himself President until new elections could be held. Madero promised to return all land that had been confiscated from the peasants, and he called for universal voting rights and for a limit of one term for the presidency. Madero's call for an uprising on November 20th, 1910, marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

Following the assassination of Madero and the assumption of power by Huerta in 1913, he returned to join the opposition under the revolutionary Venustiano Carranza. Using "hit and run" tactics, he gained control of northern Mexico, including Mexico City. As a result, his powerful fighting force became "La Division Del Norte." The two men soon became enemies, however, and when Carranza seized power in 1914, Villa led the rebellion against him. By April of 1915, Villa had set out to destroy Carranzista forces in the Battle of Celaya. The battle was fought with sheer hatred in mind rather than military strategy, resulting in amass loss of the Division del Norte. (109) In October of 1915, after much worry about foreign investments, in the midst of struggles for power, the U.S. recognized Carranza as President of Mexico. When Pancho Villa learned of this he felt betrayed by President Wilson and assumed Carranza had signed a dangerous pact with the U.S., putting Mexico in United States' hands.

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